Blurring the Boundary Between the Classroom and the Community: Challenges for Teachers’ Professional Knowledge

Abstract

Today arguments mount for a science education that students find engaging. Thus attention has turned towards curriculum that places more focus on the world outside school, on the reasonable view that if students are to operate as informed citizens then the science curriculum they experience at school has to be sufficiently meaningful and relevant for them to perceive links with what they experience outside the school doors. However, the science that is enacted beyond the classroom is not immediately discernible in the issues and problems in which it resides, because it is melded immutably with knowledge and understanding in a range of other subjects—mathematics, geography and economics—and also is imbued with social, cultural and political values. Teaching science that includes interaction with significant issues beyond the classroom demands of teachers a different knowledge base than the discipline-specific perspective. Instead, teachers need to work in interdisciplinary ways and integrate at least some parts of the curriculum. Significantly, curriculum integration is a contested concept in science education, reflecting the tension that exists between the powerful knowledge attributed to disciplines and the arguably more worthwhile, but less powerful, interdisciplinary knowledge available from an integrated curriculum. Thus for quality teaching that deals with issues beyond the classroom, a different interpretation of pedagogical content knowledge is required. In this chapter, the curriculum forces that underlie this tension are explored and an argument made for a more balanced view of science curriculum which can serve both the need for disciplinary knowledge and the need for students to be able to apply their learning outside of school.

“Teachers, students, parents and Dr C. We hope you enjoy our performance. We would like to tell you why we wrote the Potato Rap. We were given this challenge by Dr C. to see if we could inform you that this is the International Year of the Potato. Why would anybody want to make an International Year of the Potato, after all, it’s just a potato, right? But once we started to research potatoes, we found out some interesting facts…”

Soon the spokesperson for the Year 4 class introduced Dr C., the school’s visiting scientist (a potato pathologist), to the school assembly, who explained,

“I work with a lot of sick potatoes, and just like a doctor, we have to find out which potatoes are sick, why they are sick, and see if we can find a cure. The work that we do as scientists helps you to have a constant supply of potatoes.”

He thanked the class for their performance and some rap music began to throb.

“Hey!”

shouted 25 potatoes in unison—the entire class was on the stage, dressed in coloured tights stuffed with crumpled paper—brown potatoes, yellow potatoes, purple potatoes, white potatoes, pink potatoes.

“What do you know?

All the world eats”

and 25 potatoes threw their arms in the air, shouting

“Potatoes!”

The rap music continued:

“How do you know if a potato is sick?”

(A large brown potato at the front of the group collapsed dramatically, but gracefully, to the stage.)

“Find a ‘tato pathologist really quick!”

(A white potato comes to the rescue.)

“They are like a doctor, calling around”

(The brown potato is rapidly cured.)

“They’ll keep potatoes healthy and brown!

Potatoes!”

Caught up in the class’s enthusiasm, the audience of delighted parents and other students at the assembly raised their hands and joined the shout before the next verse of the Potato Rap.